Global Warming's affect on the Polar Bear
A disturbing event documented by Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center in January of 2004 found that polar bears are turning to cannibalism. A male polar bear preyed on a female bear in her den soon after giving birth. This is not the only act of cannibalism found in polar bears. American and Canadian scientists have found three other incidents between January and April of 2004.
Scientist believes that global warming and the polar bears cannibalistic acts are highly correlated. Global warming is decreasing the amount of ice found in the polar bears habitat each year, making it impossible for bears to get to their nature food source of seals. The bears also use ice for travel, mating, and giving birth.
The effects of global warming are heavily affecting the polar bears that scientist believe that they will become extinct by the end of the century. But if polar bears become extinct, who will coca-cola use in their Christmas commercials?
Source: http://animal.discovery.com/news
Posted By: Rachel McMahon (11)
posted by PWH @ 8:30 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Oh no what a sad thing to hear!
:(
That's quite interesting that the polar bears are resorting to eating each other. I wonder though, if it's just a coincidence that scientists have seen this behavior "more often" since there is a hype of scientists travelling to arctic regions to study global warming because it has become such a topic of debate in recent years. Perhaps scientists are jumping to conclusions as to why cannabalism is showing in polar bear populations. There may be other reasons that they are resorting to this behavior, and should be backed with more evidence.
Posted by Christine Tauras
I did not know that polar bears were resulting to this. If they feel the need to resort to cannibalism it means that their living situation is very bad. I had heard often that the polar bears were dying because they would be on a piece of ice that would separate itself from the rest of the land and they would have to swim back. Since they hadn't eaten anything the would not have a lot of energy and would eventually drown. I wonder if what Christine said is true: are they only seeing this act because of the hype of global warming or is this the outcome of their not having enough food to eat?
Posted by Carmen B. Arsuaga (11)
If you type polar into the search bar on the blog site you will see that this is the 5th time someone has blogged about polar cannibalism....
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